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Yesterday, I saw this secret posted over on PostSecret.
I liked it.
Generally speaking, it captures a fierce love of a few certain things. I like how it efficiently eliminates that which the writer DOESN'T believe in, but clearly identifies the things that the writer DOES believe in. I appreciate the writer's clarity.
But I definitely don't believe the same things that the writer does.
I DO believe in science.
I can measure science. I can repeat the effects of science. I can know a scientific thing to be true and then, if it's proven to be untrue, I can let go of that idea and embrace the new idea. I can actually evolve what I believe in. Science reflects the world around me that I can see, touch, taste and experience.
Faith, on the other hand, is only so much stubbornly-maintained self delusion. Giant, invisible men. Gothic devils with pitchforks and fire. Miracles. Benevolent guidance. Constant supervision. Obscure behavorial demands that aren't relevant in our contemporary world.
Science moves forward.
Faith holds you back.
Science is progress.
Faith is repression.
So, I've used my clunky, stilted Microsoft Paint skills to edit the above secret to reflect more of my motto. (With gratitude to the original artist for their inspirational, first work). I present... what I believe...
Now THAT is a creed that I can get behind!
Cheers,
Mr.B
2 comments:
That's a pretty limiting definition of faith. Faith doesn't equally mean all things crazy religious.
You can have faith and not be Christian or Buddhist or whatever. Faith just means understanding that there is something more than just yourself and your world.
How does your belief in Tarot cards and magicks (or however that's spelled) fit in with this?
I'm not chop busting I'm really curious.
Hey Crescent,
No worries. I don't consider this to be chop-busting. At least not any kind of busting that any substantial chop couldn't stand up to. Always be skeptical.
Faith, as I understand it, is the belief in that which cannot be proven. And it IS typically linked to religious beliefs. Debate it all you want, that's what the word is typically associated with today. Just like "Gay" might've had a broader interpretation in the past, it's saddled with a new, contemporary definition.
From a skeptic's mind, there isn't a whole lot of difference between "Giant Invisible Man In The Clouds" and "Ghost of a Long-Dead Prophet" or "We Are All Godlings, Waiting To Be Released From These Bodies" or "Alien Ghosts Have Attached Themselves To Our Souls." (Those are accurate, albeit a little unkind, summaries of Christianity, Islam, Mormonism and Scientology.)
It's a big, crazy mess of folk-tales, propaganda and socially-constrictive political doctrine. It really is all the same thing! I think we would be better served by no longer accepting all of this crap as valid or "true". It's NOT true. And the church's of the world have tried to maintain control over people, by repressing information (remember when the church used to kill people for suggesting that the Earth wasn't the center of the universe?) and controlling progress.
For my money, there IS something larger than us. Two things, actually. TIME and GRAVITY. And neither of them require my belief to be real. TIME marches forward, aging you me and everyone we know. GRAVITY holds me to the floor and keeps the big, old Earth spinning around. You want to believe in something that preceeded you and will be here when you're gone? Boom. There you go.
I get that you want to be kind, loving and respectful of everyone. Leaving room for everyone to believe everything that they possibly want to believe in. And that's not a bad thing. It's when people with religious agendas begin influencing the very real world decision for the rest of us, that we run into trouble. (Remember how people said that some apocalyptically-minded Christians were HAPPY to elect Bush because they felt that he would bring about the end times?) The crazy shit in people's heads, doesn't always stay there. It comes out in the ways that they vote. In how they treat family members that are different from them. In how they write laws. In how they punish criminals. In what media they will tolerate for other people!!!
If that crazy shit really is given free reign in the world, then, No, tolerance isn't the best answer. That's a quick way to find yourself bulldozed by some fanatic who doesn't believe what you believe.
Maybe it's time for some healthy, aggressive skepticism to be directed at the nuts of the world.
As for tarot and magick, well, I have no idea. I am, of course, skeptical. But I want to investigate them further to either believe in them or write them off entirely. I would NEVER make any sort of life decision based on what a tarot card reading told me. That would be foolish, foolish, foolish.
Cheers,
COB
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